Total on a chiliagon / THU 2-26-26 / Questionable, in slang / Animal in some traditional Tibetan races / Amount measured in calories / Shots, informally / System in which XL is smaller than L / Collectively, the reigns of all English monarchs named George / 8' 4" / 250,000 sheets / Accessory for SpongeBob SquarePants / Queen of the Pride Lands / Side dish eaten with curry / Mercury's mythological counterpart

Constructor: Yitzi Snow

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: ROMAN NUMERALS (35A: System in which XL is smaller than L ... or a hint to interpreting the answers to the italicized clues) — answers involve numbers; those numbers must be written as ROMAN NUMERALS, which results in answers that look like completely unrelated words:

Theme answers:

• CINCHES (1A: 8' 4" = 100 inches)
• DREAMS (8A: 250,000 sheets = 500 reams)
• VIKING SHIPS (21A: Collectively, the reigns of all English monarchs named George = six kingships)
• LIABILITIES (51A: Superhuman strength, mind-reading, invisibility and four dozen other powers = fifty-one abilities)
• XBOXES (65A: ▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢▢ = ten boxes)
• MANGLES (66A: Total on a chiliagon = 1,000 angles)

Word of the Day: chiliagon (66A) —

In geometry, a chiliagon (/ˈkɪliəɡɒn/) or 1,000-gon is a polygon with 1,000 sides. Philosophers commonly refer to chiliagons to illustrate ideas about the nature and workings of thought, meaning, and mental representation. [...] René Descartes uses the chiliagon as an example in his Sixth Meditation to demonstrate the difference between pure intellection and imagination. He says that, when one thinks of a chiliagon, he "does not imagine the thousand sides or see them as if they were present" before him – as he does when one imagines a triangle, for example. The imagination constructs a "confused representation," which is no different from that which it constructs of a myriagon (a polygon with ten thousand sides). However, he does clearly understand what a chiliagon is, just as he understands what a triangle is, and he is able to distinguish it from a myriagon. Therefore, the intellect is not dependent on imagination, Descartes claims, as it is able to entertain clear and distinct ideas when imagination is unable to. Philosopher Pierre Gassendi, a contemporary of Descartes, was critical of this interpretation, believing that while Descartes could imagine a chiliagon, he could not understand it: one could "perceive that the word 'chiliagon' signifies a figure with a thousand angles [but] that is just the meaning of the term, and it does not follow that you understand the thousand angles of the figure any better than you imagine them."

The example of a chiliagon is also referenced by other philosophers. David Hume points out that it is "impossible for the eye to determine the angles of a chiliagon to be equal to 1.996 right angles, or make any conjecture, that approaches this proportion." Gottfried Leibniz comments on a use of the chiliagon by John Locke, noting that one can have an idea of the polygon without having an image of it, and thus distinguishing ideas from images. Immanuel Kant refers instead to the enneacontahexagon (96-gon), but responds to the same question raised by Descartes.

Henri Poincaré uses the chiliagon as evidence that "intuition is not necessarily founded on the evidence of the senses" because "we can not represent to ourselves a chiliagon, and yet we reason by intuition on polygons in general, which include the chiliagon as a particular case."

Inspired by Descartes's chiliagon example, Roderick Chisholm and other 20th-century philosophers have used similar examples to make similar points. Chisholm's "speckled hen", which need not have a determinate number of speckles to be successfully imagined, is perhaps the most famous of these.

• • •

This didn't work for me. The answers are random—you can make potential theme answers for a puzzle like this all day long: CHARMS, DAPPLES, etc. etc. etc. Why "VI" but no "V"? Why "LI" but no "L"? Why is there an extra, non-Roman-numeral word (SHIPS) in VIKING SHIPS, when there are none in any of the other themers? Why does "X" get to stand on its own as a letter in X BOXES, but in none of the other themers? The numbers don't go in order or have any sense of purpose. The whole thing feels chaotic, not to mention absurd —that is, the literal answers themselves are ridiculous non-things. 100 inches? Fifty-one abilities? (also, if "LI" is "fifty-one," how is LIABILITIES not "fifty-one ABI fifty-one TIES?). I get that the absurdity there is part of the alleged fun of the thing, but even the absurdity is faulty—Fifty-one abilities is well and truly ridiculous, conceptually, whereas 500 reams and 100 inches are just 500 reams and 100 inches: arbitrary amounts of things, but not exactly ridiculous. Not ridiculous enough to be funny or otherwise enjoyable. This puzzle also has what is possibly the least necessary revealer of all time. Before I even got to the midway point, I knew I was dealing with ROMAN NUMERALS. That much was self-evident. There's absolutely no need to have a revealer in this puzzle. Part of the Thursdayness of it all is that you have to figure out what's going on. If the revealer had something new or funny or punny to show me, fine let me have it. But ROMAN NUMERALS??? I already see that. That does nothing for me. Big obvious unnecessary answer just taking up valuable real estate in the middle of the puzzle. Bizarre. Remedial. Disappointing.

[41A: "Stompin' at the ___" (Benny Goodman standard)]

But it's the fill in this puzzle that really put me off. Right away. NW corner, danger signs everywhere. I wrote in CON AIR thinking "I remember that movie, vaguely, but will others?" (Actually, my first thought was AIR FORCE ONE, but obviously that wouldn't fit). That answer is 30yo pop culture, but it's not inherently bad. What followed, however, was a barrage of bad:

LAA to NAE to CTA to me doubled over, sighing, wondering when it's going to stop. And while it got better, it didn't get much better. NALA ELIAS ATA TWOD MANI. Even ORE CART (LOL, 7-letter crosswordese, for sure). What the hell is UNNAILED?! One unscrupulous constructor puts that damned answer in a puzzle 8 years ago and now it's in the constructor wordlist ecosystem forever. Use discretion! Just because one constructor thought a "word" was a word does not mean that you have to follow suit. Moving on: I CAN SAY?? I had I CAN SEE in there for a bit. Does "I CAN SAY" even fit the clue? (42A: "Based on my research..."). I can't really swap the clue phrase out for the answer very easily / plausibly. You might follow the phrase "Based on my research" with "I CAN SAY," but that they don't feel synonymous. If I "stall," I BUY TIME, I don't gain it. If I take a shortcut, maybe I GAIN TIME, but if I'm stalling, I'm buying it. And ASSED? Just ... ASSED, hanging out there in the breeze? An ASSED partial? I dunno. The fill just was Not landing for me today. Also, I don't get as bothered as some other solvers do by pop culture answers, but there were a lot of them today. Namey namey namey. NALA SARAH CON AIR ICEMEN, all movie-related, all before we even leave the NW. Disney, Spongebob, Black Widow, ANA de Armas. It's a lot.

I didn't struggle too much with this one. That first themer took a while to get, I guess. There was the "I CAN SEE" hold-up. I wrote in VAX before PIX, so that was weird (55D: Shots, informally). The slowest, or sloggiest part was probably the SE, where the GAIN of GAIN TIME and the entirety of UNNAILED (!??) were not just tough for me to pick up—they crossed the GUM of "BY GUM!," which I thought might be "BY GOD!" (52D: "Dagnabbit!"). So it was a little slippery through there, but not excessively so. Best mistake of the day: back when I had "I CAN SEE" instead of "I CAN SAY," I imagined that Tibetans engaged in ELK racing, so that was fun (Yes, ELK racing is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as EMU racing, which was the actual first thing that popped into my head) (45D: Animal in some traditional Tibetan races).


Bullets:

• 15A: Accessory for SpongeBob SquarePants (RED TIE) — oof. Green Paint if I ever saw it ("Green Paint" is a pairing of words that one might say in real life, but that does not have enough coherence or specificity to be a standalone answer) (GREEN LANTERN, yes; GREEN BEANS, yes; GREEN PAINT, no). Honestly, RED TIE is as close to the actual (non) answer GREEN PAINT as you're likely to get. If the concept of GREEN PAINT weren't already taken, we'd have to name it RED TIE. Been 21 years since anyone tried to make RED TIE happen. Here's to another 21. At least.
• 2D: Amount measured in calories (INTAKE) — completely confusing to me. Calories are measured in calories. INTAKE is a generic word. It has no dietary specificity. Your calorie INTAKE is measured in calories. The clue feels underwritten.
• 5D: Alternative to a walk (HIT) — baseball. A walk and a HIT are both ways to get on base.

• 23D: Queen of the Pride Lands (NALA) — a potentially tricky clue. I've still never seen The Lion King, but I've seen NALA in crosswords enough to recognize the signs here ("Queen" / "Pride" (of lions)). 
• 33D: Questionable, in slang (SUS) — I can't say I love SUS, but as far as modern slang goes, it's very tolerable to my ears. It's a real thing that people say, and it makes sense (just an abbr. of "suspicious"), so as a newish addition to the three-letter landscape, I don't mind this little palindrome at all. I still say "sketchy" (or just "sketch"), because SUS feels generationally wrong in my mouth, but for others, I like it.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Combatant in an octagon-shaped cage / WED 2-25-26 / So-called "melting pot," in brief / Tribal home, maybe, informally / Tick doc / ___ hair (edgy 2000s trend)

Constructor: Brad Lively

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: BREAKDANCES (60A: Emulates the three figures in this puzzle ... or what the figures do within the answers to 17-, 27- and 46-Across?) — each theme answer features a little breakdancer in the shape of a letter; these human-shaped "letters" appear inside (i.e. "break") the names of "dances" (found in shaded squares inside the theme answers). Thus the the little breakdancers "BREAK DANCES":

Theme answers (blue letters represent the little breakdancing figures, red letters spell out the dances):

• CREDI[T] SCORE (17A: Failing to pay bills on time may affect this)
• VINCENT [V]AN GOGH (27A: "Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear" painter, 1889)
• HANNIBAL LE[C]TER (46A: Villain ranked #1 on A.F.I.'s "100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains" list)

Word of the Day: Steven YEUN (57D: Actor Steven of "Beef" and "Nope") —

Sang-yeop Yeun (Korean: 연상엽; born December 21, 1983), known professionally as Steven Yeun (/jʌn/ YUHN), is an American actor. He rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for the films Burning (2018) and Minari (2020). For the latter, he became the first East Asian-American nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. For the Netflix dark comedy series Beef (2023), which he produced and starred in, Yeun received Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Limited Series and Outstanding Lead Actor.

Yeun has also appeared in the films Okja (2017), Sorry to Bother You (2018), The Humans (2021), and Nope (2022). He has also voiced main characters in animated television series such as Voltron: Legendary Defender (2016–2018), Tales of Arcadia (2016–2021), Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters (2017–2018), Final Space (2018–2021), Tuca & Bertie (2019–2022), and Invincible (2021–present). (wikipedia)

• • •

The only thing keeping this puzzle from four-and-a-half stars is the fact that the breakdancing letters themselves are meaningless. That is, they're random letters. They don't spell anything or have any significance beyond their shape. That said, these are probably the three letters of the alphabet that most closely resemble breakdancer positions (try making yourself into an "H," for example—actually, esp. if you're over 50, definitely do not try this). The first two breakdancer-letters (the "T" and "V") make a nice sequence—handstand into a backspin. I can definitely see that happening, breakdancing-wise. That "C" is iffier, though. Whatever that little dude is doing to make himself a "C" seems the least "breakdancey" of these figures. So the breakdancer-letters have no larger significance and one of them seems more contrived (from a visual standpoint) than the others. Beyond that, though, this theme is kinda brilliant. Little dancers inside dances inside longer answers! Extreme nesting! And the dances are all solid, familiar, recognizable, and they touch every element in the overall theme answers. That is, every word in every themer is part of a dance—no words left hanging. That is how you do "hidden word" themes. The rest of the puzzle had its strengths and weaknesses. It's a very choppy grid with maybe more than its share of repeaters (NENE IKEA SSNS INRE ADE ORA EKED etc etc), but the clues were far more interesting than normal, and the theme was so strong that I didn't care so much about the weaknesses in the fill. I'm not normally a big fan of picture gimmicks in my puzzle, but this one is truly inventive, and from a craftsmanship standpoint, it's very solid. Ambitious and well executed. I had a good time.

I was entertained from the very first clue. 1A: [Taps casino table] is a fantastic (visual! audio!) clue for "HIT ME." There just seemed to be more color and pizzazz than usual in the clues today. More "?" clues. More details. The theme answers themselves were inherently interesting—well, not CREDIT SCORE, no one likes thinking about CREDIT SCOREs, but the others, for sure. I never saw the clue for either Van Gogh or Lecter—I really do work the short stuff first, since that tends to be higher-percentage (easier to get at first glance than longer stuff), and sometimes, by the time I even consider looking at the clue for a longer answer, I've already got enough letters in place to infer it. With HANNIBAL LECTER, I had the end worked out and the letter combo was so unusual that HANNIBAL LECTER was the only answer that made sense. Coincidentally, after the death of actor Tom Noonan last week, I watched the fantastic Michael Mann movie Manhunter (1986), in which Brian Cox (of Succession fame) plays ... HANNIBAL LECTER! A good five years before Hopkins! It's a bit part, but he's very good. Tom Noonan plays the main serial killer in the film, and he is extraordinary. 

[Cox]

[Noonan]

The puzzle was very easy, but that didn't bother me so much today, since the easiness allowed the theme to unfold and pop in a fast, energetic way, which seemed appropriate. Who wants a breakdancing puzzle to be a slog? There were only two answers that gave me any trouble. One is embarrassing: I have seen and enjoyed many Steven YEUN movies, but when I read his clue (57D: Actor Steven of "Beef" and "Nope"), I had the "YE-" in place and reflexively wrote in YEOH—a different actor altogether. Wrong ethnicity, wrong gender, wrong wrong wrong. Bah. My (extreme) bad. The other hold-up I don't feel nearly so bad about. CMD!? Is that short for "Command?" Yeesh, that is ... not pretty. Astonishingly, this abbr. was used only twice in the pre-Shortz era, but has (comparatively) flourished under Shortz, almost always with the same boring clue: today's clue: [Mil. authority] (16 appearances under Shortz, 10 of them with this clue, zzzz). This is the first appearance of CMD in ten years! It can go back into retirement now, I won't mind. Anyway, I spun out a bit on DOD today. I had the "D" in place and wrote in DOD (Dept. of Defense). That's a "Mil. authority," isn't it? 

Bullets:

• 11A: ___ hair (edgy 2000s trend) (EMO) — got EMO easy even though I can't really tell you what this hair looks like. I'm picturing Bill Hader as Stefan on SNL, but Stefan wasn't exactly EMO:

• 33A: Tribal home, maybe, informally (REZ) — a perfectly good answer (short for "Reservation"), but "maybe, informally" felt like one qualifier too many.
• 35A: So-called "melting pot," in brief (U.S.A.) — enjoying the shade this puzzle is throwing around today with "So-called." See also the clue on MADONNA (4D: So-called "Queen of Pop"). I've heard Michael Jackson called the "King of Pop," but this "Queen of Pop" moniker is less familiar to me, which is strange, as I grew up in peak Madonna Times, and even saw her in concert in Minneapolis a couple years ago.

• 30D: Tick doc (VET) — I was not aware that VETs treated arachnids. (Seriously, what is happening here? You take your dog to the vet when he gets ticks? Is that it?) (wait, is this a "Tik Tok" pun???) 😦
• 12D: Combatant in an octagon-shaped cage (MMA FIGHTER) — not a fan of MMA, but am a fan of this answer, which is bright and original and (most importantly) helped me figure out CMD.
• 11D: Sound-track? (ECHOLOCATE) — good answer, great clue. That NE corner really hums. I will say that even though CMD sucks, it is holding together the best part of the puzzle—which is the only reason cruddy fill should ever show its face.
• 29D: Cyber punk? (TROLL) — nice wordplay—reimagining the literary genre (cyberpunk) as an actual punk (i.e. asshole) online. Good stuff. I also like 37D: Bear's heirs? for CUBS. No real wordplay at work there, just a funny little rhyming clue. It's nice for easy clues to have a little personality sometimes.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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